Rogue of the Week: Oregon State Police Officers’ Association

The state troopers’ union is still employing telemarketers who use shakedown tactics.

Tags:

It’s an old scam: Set up a bogus charity and a boiler-room
call center. Tell people you’re raising money for cops, vets or
firefighters. Pocket the donations and skip town before the authorities
catch on.

But it’s not every day that unscrupulous telemarketers actually do work on behalf of the police.

This week’s Rogue,
the Oregon State Police Officers’ Association, has employed a
fundraising tactic that is at best misleading and, at worst, bullying.

The association is
the union for some 700 state troopers. The troopers use a professional
fundraising company, Jadent Inc. of Keizer, to solicit donations from
the public that the union uses to supplements members’ dues, print union
publications and support a scholarship fund.

But Jadent’s tactics
are troubling. In February, Salem attorney Monty VanderMay says he got a
call from a Jadent pitchman who claimed—falsely—that VanderMay had
committed to donating to the state police association and buying an ad
in Oregon State Trooper magazine.

Then came a bill in
the mail that twice used the word “invoice” and gave VanderMay a due
date for paying $50. VanderMay complained to the Oregon Department of
Justice, calling the pitch “disturbing.”

The DOJ let Jadent
off with a warning after the company took VanderMay off the call list
and said the solicitor—who worked for a subcontractor—was fired. Jadent
corporate secretary Tom O’Shea declined to talk to WW but said through an assistant that the matter is “resolved.”

The Oregon State
Police Officers’ Association’s most recent federal tax returns show that
Jadent pocketed 75 percent of the $491,000 it raised for the
association last year. That’s an unusually high overhead expense, a
national review of charity fundraisers shows.

The money left over
for the state police association last year didn’t even cover the
$143,000 salary of its president, Senior Trooper Jeff Leighty, who
stepped down in March.

The current union
president, Senior Trooper Darrin Phillips, says his association still
employs Jadent but will review its contract this summer. “We want to be
in bounds, and we want to make sure Jadent is in bounds,” Phillips says.
He accepts the company’s explanation. “We’ve had very few complaints,”
he says.

Reached at his home in Canby, Leighty, the former union president, said he hadn’t heard of the DOJ investigation into Jadent.

But he did know a thing or two about dealing with unwanted phone calls.

“I’m not talking to you about this,” he said. “Don’t call me about this.”